I am a very experienced woodworker (big stuff). I have never built a model ship ,except the plastic stuff I built as a kid. I was a deck hand on the three masted square rigged Ragina Maris when I was a young man, and I've always wanted to own a gaff-rigged schooner. My wife bought me the Baltimore II for Christmas. I love the idea and have always loved replicas of sailing vessels. All that being said, I am only to the keel portion of building the only schooner I will probably ever own, the Baltimore II (MS2120). She's not as big as I dreamed, but she's pretty cool. Anyway, the keel rabbet doesn't make any sense to me. The taper on the keel makes perfect sense, but the actual keel sticks a bit below the keel piece that the bulkheads glue into. Tapering the bottom of the keel piece and then gluing the actual keel onto it makes no sense. This is one the very first steps in making my schooner, so I want to get it right. Also, the instructions mentions dowels and tacks but give no specifications for either. While I can see the utility of dowling the actual keel, I need to know what to use (tiny dowels?). As to tacks, they are apparently used throughout to tack down decking, hull, etc. What should I use? Last question (for now), can someone explain to me what the bearding line is and why everything needs to be tapered to that point so that it all fits? Thanks,
Ken Hale
